1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to telecommunications services. More particularly, the present invention facilitates the issuance of inquiries to, along with the appropriate processing of responses that are received from, Home Location Register (HLR) facilities and other similarly-situated facilities.
2. Background of the Invention
A wireless telecommunications environment contains a number of different elements. While the precise nature, makeup, organization, etc. of the elements within a particular environment may vary depending upon the technology at play—e.g., Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), etc.—the portions of a wireless telecommunications environment that are of interest and importance to the present discussion may be illustrated through the high-level ‘generalized’ diagram (of a portion of a hypothetical Wireless Carrier's [WC's] environment) that is presented in FIG. 1.
As appropriate and as required, additional more detailed information may be obtained from any number of sources including, inter alia, references such as “Wireless and Mobile Network Architectures” by Lin and Chlamtac (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2001) and on-line treatises.
For purposes of completeness the following elements are noted in the high-level diagram that is presented in FIG. 1:
A) Mobile Subscriber (MS) 102. For example, a user of a cellular telephone.
B) Base Station (BS). A logical aggregation of, for example, controller (e.g., Base Station Controller [BSC]) functionality and transmitter/receiver (e.g., Base Transceiver Station [BTS]) functionality that realizes a ‘cell’ which services one or more MSs. Four BSs are depicted in FIG. 1—BSa 112 (along with its cell 104), BSb 114 (along with its cell 106), BSc 118 (along with its cell 110), and BSd 116 (along with its cell 108).
C) Mobile Switching Center (MSC) 128. A specialized switching system that, in the instant depiction, supports or services the four BSs BSa 112, BSb 114, BSc 118, and BSd 116 (through the connections 120, 122, 126, and 124 respectively).
D) Visitor Location Register (VLR) 130. A repository containing selected temporary or transient information for those specific MSs that are currently being serviced by the VLR's associated MSC 128.
E) HLR 132. A permanent repository containing identifying, profile, subscription, etc. information for all of the MSs within the instant WC's environment.
Each MS Wireless Device (WD) that is supported by a WC may have a logical record in the WC's HLR. Such a logical record:
1) May be keyed, indexed, etc. by one or more identifiers that are associated with the WD—e.g., the WD's TN (perhaps Mobile Directory Number [MDN] or Mobile Station International ISDN Number [MSISDN]), an International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), etc., and
2) May contain a wide range of MS-specific and WD-specific information including possibly inter alia MS identifying information, MS preferences, MS account status, services (such as for example roaming, [SMS, MMS, etc.] messaging, enhanced data facilities such as General Packet Radio Service [GPRS], call forwarding, call waiting, caller identification, etc.) that are enabled, WD capabilities and characteristics, an identifier of the MSC that currently services the WD (based on the WD's current physical location), etc.
F) Signaling System Number 7 (SS7) Cloud 134. Access to the various interconnected SS7 networks.
G) Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) Cloud 136. Access to the various interconnected public (land-line, etc.) telecommunications networks.
H) Land Subscriber (LS) 138. For example, a user of a fixed- or land-line telephone.
Central amongst the elements that are depicted in the hypothetical WC's environment in FIG. 1 is the HLR facility 132. A WC's HLR serves as something of a ‘magic decoder ring’ of sorts from which key MS information may be retrieved and through which critical activities may be completed. Illustrative uses include, inter alia:
A) Confirming that a WC does in fact currently own or service a MS. This is of critical importance given, for example, the increasing presence of Number Portability (NP) regimes.
B) Confirming the specific services, options, etc. that a MS has elected and for which (e.g., based on things such as current account balances, etc.) a MS is presently eligible.
C) Ascertaining the current physical location of a MS (e.g., what MSC currently services the MS) and, as a consequence, identifying the viable routing and call/message delivery options that are available at that moment in time.
D) Ascertaining whether a MS is currently roaming outside of, or away from, her home WC.
E) Supporting the proper routing and delivering of telephone calls.
F) Supporting the proper routing and delivering of (e.g., Short Message Service [SMS] and Multimedia Message Service [MMS] and other) messages.
An HLR is typically accessed via SS7. As a result, the various activities that were described in A→F above are commonly accomplished through an exchange of Mobile Application Part (MAP) and other request and response SS7 messages. One specific MAP message that is of interest is the SendRoutingInformation (SRI) message, which is:
1) Realized as LocationRequest or LOCREQ (and defined in the Telecommunications Industry Association [TIA]/Electronic Industries Alliance [EIA]-41-D specification) for an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) flavor of SS7 (as used domestically).
2) Realized as MAP_SEND_ROUTING_INFO (and defined in the International Telecommunication Union [ITU] Q.771-Q.775 specifications) for an ITU flavor of SS7 (as used internationally).
Access to a WC's HLR is typically very tightly controlled by the WC. This is due partly to the critical importance of an HLR (as described above), partly to the mechanism that is used to access an HLR (typically involving the execution of reciprocal business agreements and the explicit granting of permissions and access rights via a trusted SS7 network), and partly to the sensitive MS-specific information and other proprietary business information that is housed in an HLR.
As noted above, a logical HLR record for a particular MS WD may contain a wide range of MS-specific and WD-specific information. A WC may consider certain aspects of that information (such as for example MS account status) to be proprietary business information that among other things the WC does not wish to disclose to outside entities. As well a WC may consider other aspects of that information (such as for example a WD's TN) to be public information that among other things the WC does not mind disclosing to outside entities.
Thus the conundrum . . . How does an interested entity (e.g., a third-party message delivery service) efficiently and seamlessly gain access to a range of WC's HLRs? The present invention provides a solution.